ok. so photos/images are sorely lacking, i know. and i’ve made many a promise to put up images from the brighton speed trials, from my holidays, from when i got my hair chopped off….

but the time taken to deal with my LPC stuff and the time needed to trawl through my images and adjust each and every one of them on photoshop is just too much time altogether. i can either do one or the other, and one of them is going to finance all the rest of the other one sometime in future. it will also finance more cameras i have no need for, or have no idea how to use. oh, and film too.

anyway, because i’m feeling like i ought to put up some visuals, here’s one i took in september at COLLISION - an art, music, performance extravaganza that took place at Area 10 in peckham.

there will be more, eventually.

so i’m currently skipping my yoga class for pork chops and ‘the best of dragon’s den’.

i know. it’s terrible. i really ought to be thinking OM and doing asanas even though i’m not in the class, instead of vegging out at home and doing completely toxic things.

oh well.

i’m tired. i’ve only been in school two days this week, but it’s feels like i haven’t had a break since school started in september. it’s a lucky thing we’re having reading week next week, even if it’s already chock-a-block with assignments and assessments i have to finish by the time school starts up again.

i’ve also been thinking of just buying a ticket for an exorbitant amount to get me home over christmas break. thinking hard. it does not help that my dad is guilt-tripping me over my grandmother and her age and me not being back home for chinese new year etc. so, christmas, chinese new year, same same but different but close enough, eh?

ok, my pork chops are almost done. i must go make a salad etc to go along with it now. dragon’s den is really quite funny.

ugh.

back home for a short respite from the pub, and then off to brixton for a houseparty tonight and another one tomorrow. we’re going to be temporary ’saath’ londoners for the weekend.

i’m too tired to be doing all this drinking and partying and socialising. i just really want to be curled up in bed with a book and have an early night.

oh well. duty calls. what’s that thing they say? noblesse oblige.

it’s going to be carnage.

ok, i’ve just browsed through the statement of claim.

like, hello, why are there such unnecessary things in there?

why is there ‘background’, which basically says that the claimants have had great successes in bringing defamation claims against other people? what purpose does this serve to show and/or support the proposition that the words found in the publication are in fact libellous and defamatory? seriously now. save the earth and stop wasting paper and ink on these irrelevant paragraphs.

And, what’s up with all the NKF stuff? Yeah, so it’s somehow relevant, but not so relevant that you spend a page detailing what exactly went on.

And also, the supposedly libellous article merely said that there was a NKF scandal, and that it raises questions of how the government uses the money that we ‘deposit’ with them. FAIR COMMENT. I asked myself that very question when the NKF issue arose, and it was directed at the government itself and not anyone in particular.

anyway, does it refer to the claimants? maybe. Did it defame them? i don’t think so. like i said before, FEER didn’t actually categorically state that these people are corrupt. yes they were pointed questions, but it was up to the reader to make up their own mind about it.

these people (D&N, LHL, LKY, et al) make me tired. and incredulous.

it’s so boring. i mean, if you wanted to defame them, at least make it saucy and say they like going to nightclubs and have affairs and that they have bastard children everywhere. or that they use our CPF money to build villas in the canary islands, or that they don’t pay any tax at all because all their money goes to off-shore accounts in tax havens. stuff like that. it makes it so much more entertaining.

this whole ‘you are trying to say that i am a corrupt official so i’m going to sue you because i am too big and powerful to bother to explain to you how incorrupt i actually am’ is just too boring.

*UPDATE*

Check this out: Libel Law Overhauled in Landmark UK Ruling

Basically, if it is in the public interest and there has been responsible journalism (i.e. not wildly inaccurate and completely facetious/nonsensical statements), then libel claims cannot be brought against the publishers and/or writers.

“The key test was whether a media organisation or newspaper acted fairly and responsibly in gathering and publishing the information, the judges said.

If the reporter and editor did so, and the information was of public importance, then the fact that it contained relevant but defamatory allegations against prominent people would not permit them to recover libel damages.”

I’ve just read through the correspondence between FEER and Drew & Napier.

As a law student who has just gone through several classes of legal writing, I must comment that the language used in the Drew & Napier letters is… well… not as nice as it could be. I’m not saying that the content ought to be nicer, it could be downright nasty for all i care, but the manipulation of the language was unsatisfactory. More elegance and class, please!

I mean, why use the words ‘cynically profit’? Why put a moralistic twist to the issue when speaking to FEER’s legal counsel? Do you really think he will feel threatened by moralistic overtones? He’s a solicitor for god’s sake. Logic, not morality.

Also, the constant jumping between ‘defamation’ and ‘libel’. Is it one, or the other? They do mean different things in law, with defamation being the broader tort and libel being the narrower (limited to written and published works).

But perhaps I’m just nit-picking.

Another thing that really gets to me - jurisdiction.

I’m not terribly clear about the rules in Singapore and/or Hong Kong, but I do know the UK/EU ones (because we’ve just gone through them in Civil Litigation, hurrah!). So here’s what i think:

If the libel is published in Hong Kong, then the injury would technically have occurred in Hong Kong. The main domicile of FEER is also Hong Kong since that’s where its offices are and where it is published, or New York since its holding company is there.

So, the correct jurisdiction would be in Hong Kong, unless FEER has instructed solicitors to accept service of legal claims in singapore, or has responded in Singapore to the claim. They are under no obligation at all to respond or to appoint solicitors in Singapore, so D&N will either have to serve it outside the jurisdiction (requiring the permission of the courts) or wait for FEER to do something in Singapore. But now that the claims have been issued, the staff of FEER are probably going to avoid Singapore like the plague, so no chance of personal service there.

And D&N can’t get a judgment in default if they never even served the damn thing.

Interesting, eh?

From the correspondence, it seems that D&N are rather used to having their letters scare the pants off the other side’s solicitors. And they’re not afraid of being condescending towards the other side’s solicitors either, although they do so object to them being condescending to their clients. wankers.

In my opinion, FEER could just stand back and do absolutely nothing. They could prepare their defences and all that, just in case, but doing nothing would mean that D&N would have to work like dogs to get the claims served in Hong Kong. And even then, FEER could dispute the jurisdiction, and have the claims moved to Hong Kong - which D&N would probably hate.

Anyway, all this is assuming that there is a valid claim (which i suspect might not be the case). Assuming that there isn’t a claim because the judge in the matter is completely unbiased and uninfluenced by the men bringing the claim thinks there isn’t, then there really isn’t anything more to talk about is there?

Apart from costs, that is.

I knew the libel suit was just going slightly too far.

Now the Lees, the government and everything else is being slammed by FEER in their october issue. ‘Kenna-bang’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.

I need to ask my mother if she’s got a copy, and to send it to me when she’s done with it. Also note my secret glee that FEER is taking no nonsense from these Lees.

Check out these articles:
Editor’s Letter
Singapore’s Founding Myths vs Freedom
The Charade of Meritocracy
Financial Centre Pipedreams

4 articles in one issue devoted to singapore. my god, aren’t we popular these days.

It’s a bit difficult to say, really, who the underdog is in this fight since one’s owned by the Dow Jones and has the Wall Street Journal as a sister-paper, while the other’s a political juggernaut in singapore. but looking at the history of legal victories the Lees have had over international publications, i know who i’m rooting for.

GO FEER!

reading the posts on tomorrow.sg and its out-links makes me depressed.

it’s not the fault of tomorrow.sg. and it’s really only the posts about the government, the arts & culture and education.

i was reading a post on the government’s banning of Far Eastern Economic Review, because they published an interview with Chee Soon Juan that included some apparently libellous statements. i’ve read the interview, and honestly, all Chee has done is express his opinion. He hasn’t said that it’s the definitive truth, he just says that this is what he thinks is going on. And all FEER has done was include his opinions - the journal never stated that they though those statements were true, merely reproduced the words of another in the form of an interview, not an editiorial comment piece. and anyway, it’s highly likely that there is a fair comment defence on this issue since it is of public interest for the interview to have been published, unless of course the supposed public interest just happens to be the private interest of the Lees.

Over-reaction can only mean some sort of underlying guilt, no? if it were not true, or if it was a complete pack of lies (which it technically isn’t because it was only an opinion and wasn’t put across as fact. mistaken opinions are to be corrected, not denied and met with a libel suit. but anyway.) then why was the offer of an interview with FEER rejected? i would’ve thought that the interview would be the perfect platform for denying Chee’s allegations, as well as being an incredibly intelligent PR tactic - LKY or LHL (whichever was to be interviewed) would be showing that they were magnanimous and graceful enough to be interviewed by a journal they obviously detest, all in the name of openness, honesty and democracy.

shame they didn’t take up the offer. and shame they decided to ban it. because now all i want to do is get a hard copy subscription and get it delivered to my parent’s home in singapore for the reading pleasure of my parents and my siblings. i don’t care if i never get to read it, it’s just the thrill of knowing i’ve done it that will please me to no end.

it’s like smoking on the balcony of my secondary school classroom, knowing that teachers could walk in at any moment, and that anyone walking to the carpark could look up and see our frank and open disrespect of the school rules and of our underage buying of cigarettes.

but i digress.

I like the FEER. like i like the New Statesman, and the Spectator, and the Economist. i like writing that isn’t afraid of annoying the bigwigs, that isn’t afraid of criticism, that isn’t going to compromise on their journalistic ideals because some guy halfway across the world thinks his integrity is being sullied (even if it is, he can write to the editor and complain, and have his version of events published in apologia). i like a certain playing with fire, a sense of danger and a sense of irreverence. why should we kowtow?

so, this banning of FEER in singapore is only going to be counterproductive. because not many people read the FEER in singapore anyway. most of the readers are high up in management and/or expatriate executives (i think, based on my completely unscientific and unreliable beliefs), since most ‘normal’ singporeans wouldn’t think of touching it with a ten foot pole because it’s so intellectual and talks about such intellectually stimulating things that their brains would explode if they ever thoguht about the issues brought up in a copy of FEER. ok i’m being terribly mean, but most singaporeans read the ST and 8days and herworld. not the financial times, not the business times and definitely not FEER.

this ban will merely reinforce the idea in our beloved foreign talents’ minds that whilst singapore is a great place to work and eat and shop, it isn’t somewhere they want to carry on living in when they retire or move jobs. take, for example, Indian foreign talent. India is the world’s greatest democracy, with hundreds, HUNDREDS, of news and current affairs publications. do you really think they’d be impressed by our clampdown on FEER and our paltry selection of newspapers? and a teacher of mine used to bristle at the thought of us having only the ST as intellectual/political sustenance - he felt compelled to make copies of English newspapers (the guardian weekly, to be precise) for us to read and analyse for our GP lessons.

it will also reinforce, internationally, the idea that singapore is ‘painfully strait-laced’ and that certain individuals are pulling the strings in front and behind the scenes. it will also most probably create an even greater divide between the singaporean citizen’s view of the world and it’s view of singapore and of them, and the reality of it all.

if the FEER has struck FEAR into their hearts, i would stop to think and question why.